Amazon announced this morning that it plans to launch a music store later this …

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Amazon dropped the bomb today by announcing its DRM-free music store. The previously-rumored store will be launched sometime "later this year" and offer unprotected MP3 files for purchase. The Amazon music store, which does not appear to have a name yet, will offer "millions" of songs from over 12,000 record labels.

Predictably, EMI has offered its own catalog to Amazon. Just last month, the music label announced that it would begin selling DRM-free tracks through the iTunes Store, making EMI the first major label to forego file protections. At that time, EMI emphasized that the DRM-free deal wasn't iTunes-exclusive and that the company was looking to expand its partnerships to other music sites as well.

"Our MP3-only strategy means all the music that customers buy on Amazon is always DRM-free and plays on any device," said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in a statement. "We’re excited to have EMI joining us in this effort and look forward to offering our customers MP3s from amazing artists like Coldplay, Norah Jones and Joss Stone."

With this move, Amazon is beating iTunes to the punch by offering an entirely DRM-free store to the public. However, aside from EMI, the other three major labels won't be launching DRM-free tracks with Amazon just yet. Steve Jobs has reportedly been pressuring the other labels to follow EMI's lead by offering unprotected, higher-quality tracks through the iTunes Store, but no deals have been struck yet.

We will keep you updated with developments on this story as they come in.

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Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui